Tinkering with new mediums....

For a long time now I've been meaning to dig out my almost unused oil pastels and neocolour water-soluble crayons to have a play with. It's not that I'm wanting to get away from soft pastels, just want to try something a bit different.
Rummaging around in my supplies I also unearthed a treasure I'd forgotten about, a gift from my mother in law that I'd never got round to using, a brand new set of Derwent inktense watersoluble ink pencils. Bonus.

It's odd working with such mediums, very different to use than my soft pastels, very fast to use and very responsive when shaped with a wet brush...I still don't like not being able to layer light on dark though and it's simply impossible to get the intensity of colour of soft pastels, good fun though and a far more portable medium.

Here's a silvery grebe, A3 cartridge paper:

Last week I also finished my second large settlement commission.

Hill Cove, soft pastels, 50 X 70 cm grey pastelmat.

Birds! the bloody birds.

My studio is full of birds! it's like a bloody Hitchcock movie. After completing my long overdue Goose in the grass painting I seemed to be in the zone for painting birds and rapidly bashed out another three.

Young hawk 2, this is based on another from the same set of photos that inspired my original young hawk painting. soft pastels and charcoal on 30 X 40 cm white pastelmat.




Rocky 2. The cocky, bumptuous rockhopper penguin, again this is an idea I always intended to do more with, original Rocky painting. Soft pastels on 24 x 30 cm brown pastelmat.




...and lastly a newcomer, a little bird that I've not painted before, a Long Tailed Meadowlark, a shy little bird that lives in mortal fear of cats and sparrowhawks. I wanted to catch the slightly frantic trepidation that these birds always seem to display. Soft pastels on 24 x 30 cm beige pastelmat.

Clearing the boards

For a long time there's been a couple of unfinished works occupying two of my drawing boards....for the best part of six months as a matter of fact. Christ knows what's been holding me back with these, both are fine ideas and there's no reason not to finish them.

One is a simple painting of a nesting goose in the long white grass, illuminated by the low sun. The other is a larger landscape, a sunrise over Stanley looking east from the battle monument, the lights of Ross Road reflecting in the water of the harbour.

Both of these have been lurking in my studio, continually catching my attention almost in reproach at their unfinished state. Well, no longer. Over the last two days I've completed both of these malingering works and both have been incredibly rewarding to finish. Maybe there's some advantage to leaving paintings on hold. I've completed both of these without my usual fiddling with pencils and conte sticks, for the first time I've really found soft pastels working for me. Most satisfying.

Stanley Sunrise, 50 x 70 cm grey pastelmat.

Goose inthe white grass, 35 x 50 cm white pastelmat

Philosophical rambling in the Antarctic...

During my recent Antarctic trip I kept a journal which I've gradually been transcribing. Yesterday I came across a passage that I wrote after a rather fine encounter we had with a Fin whale, we managed to sneak up right alongside him which is unusual with these shy giants. Not sure what I'd been drinking that day but it seemed to have put me in a rather whimsical mood. Philosophy?....perhaps, could be complete bollocks though.

The whale is ambivalent to us, sometimes curious but really we are just another thing in the ocean to him. Considering the exploitation of them that we’ve indulged in in the past, and to some extent still do so, why is this the case? We can only surmise that the whale has no means to communicate memories or information as we understand it, the threat we pose is simply unknown to the individual cetacean, he has no measure of the danger that our steel vessel could represent to him. Can he be aware that we personally in our boat are no threat? I doubt it.

We are unique in our ability to communicate, through our creations, information, stories, history and knowledge. This is our talent, whether through spoken or written language or through art and pictorial records. This is not exclusive to artists and authors, we all use these mechanisms all the time, This communication is what has allowed us to gain a measure of control over our environment and to allow our species to flourish and spread....yet we are not powerful, our environment is artificial, a construct of our collective genius, individually, stripped of the apparatus of our technology, we are at best almost helpless. We can personally hold only a tiny portion of the knowledge and skill that gives our species this power, a portion that alone is almost meaningless. The belief in our control is a subconscious fiction that we have to conceal from ourselves the truth that our lives have no purpose greater than that of any other animal, no matter how humble.

We are paradoxical creatures, we have this belief in our control, this collective blindness because of our vision and awareness rather than in spite of it. We are aware that we will die, we cannot avoid this fate in spite of all our power so we want there to be meaning to our existence that will subvert this ‘dead’ end. Again communication is the key, through our ideas, art, writing we can gain a degree of immortality as we see it. The whale is not concerned with such constructs, with the future, the past, with existential conceit, he merely lives his life. He is, perhaps, wiser than we are.

The Bonebreaker

Giant petrel (AKA Stinker or Bonebreaker) feeding. I wanted to convey the menace and strength of this huge scavenger, it's bloody head down, wings spread ready to attack to defend it's meal. Yet still I wanted there to be a feeling of trepidation, the desperation of the hungry opportunist that's made afind that it may well lose to another.

This is my biggest wildlife painting to date, it was a challenge but very satisfying. Absolutely unsaleable of course but sometimes you just have to do paintings like that.

Soft pastels on 70 X 50 grey pastelmat.

Wildlife paintings.

Been busy working on stuff to out in my exhibition in October, just recently focusing on wildlife. These two are my contributions for the annual Falklands Conservation Ball which is in late September so probably won't be in the exhibition. Both are soft pastels on pale grey pastelmat, the former 24 X 30cm, the latter 30 X 40cm.

Dark-faced Ground Tyrant:

Elephant seal pup:

As at last years ball these along with other donated paintings will be auctioned off to raise money for the organisation. Hope they sell for plenty.

Mollymawks

Ugh, pretty birds...still, customer's always right. Actually I enjoyed doing these two black browed albatross paintings. As ever soft pastels on 30 X 40 pastelmat.


Mollymawk 1. Looking beautiful on the nest, I liked the shapes that came out of this.

Mollymawk 2. This was a tougher proposition, an albatross doing something other than sitting on its nest looking noble. In flight wasn't really an option, I can't stand the appearance of albatross in gliding flight, they're just a bloody great black and white cross floating around in the painting, In my opinion they look a lot more interesting in the transition between flying and landing/taking off. So I assembled this montage of several references and a good dollop of imagination: